Bonfire of the Vanities

Vanity: excessive pride or admiration of one's own appearance.

Hmmm.  I am vain about my shoes.  I love a pretty pair of shoes and might even buy a pair that will cause me trouble if they are excessively pretty. Oh, hell.  Might.  I did.  Then on Thursday I wore them. Because that's what you do.  You buy the pretty shoes and the next day, you wear them because you can't let the pretty shoes languish in your closet.  

But, are you bringing your guide dog puppy in on that day? Yes.  Are these shoes fairly high? Yes.  Might this be a problem?  "Oh, no!" Vanity speaks and wrenches the sensible shoes out of my hands and thrusts the sparkly red shoes into my hands.  "Wear them, wear them.  You will look so good."

So that is how I came to be wearing red platform shoes on Thursday when I had Coach. Vanity, thy name is Cheryl. 

Aren't they pretty? My red platform shoes with sparkly red flowers on the front.

I was ok walking around the library.  I was ok walking to the car for lunch.  The problem came when I detected a poo butt and thought perhaps Coach should take a little walk before we entered the restaurant.  Coach and I set off to find some potty spots.  Fortunately, there was a residential street near by.  Coach did he business in record time.  Unfortunately, there was also a scary snowman on someone's front lawn.

Coach is staring at the designer dog while Frosty looks on in the background.

Coach was not pleased.  In fact, he began to bark.  He used his big boy bark.  I thought, "This is a great opportunity to have Coach get a little closer to see that Frosty is not scary."  I'm such a good puppy raiser (oh, vanity!).  Mind you, this is the corner house, near the street with the restaurants near by.

Coach was barking and I was saying, "No Noise!" and we were inching our way up an uneven lawn when all of a sudden a gust of wind made Frosty lurch toward us. Coach jerked back and yanked me off my left red platform shoe so that now I was trapped by the strap in some strange platform black hole of half on and half off with a dog giving the fish eye to a wild Frosty. 

As I was flailing around, the next door neighbor walked up with her small, perfectly coiffed, designer dog and she and the dog glanced at me and Coach.  It was that glance that made me try not to flail so blatantly, but seriously, I couldn't right myself.  Were these shoes that high?

Coach must have felt the impact of the gaze as well because he gathered breath for another big boy bark at the small designer dog as the lovely, non-sweating woman and her beige tip-toeing, silent dog glided up their driveway, but all that came out were these high pitched, squeaky barks.  Coach stopped barking.  The designer dog looked back and sniffed. Coach looked at me.

Coach looking up at me for approval.

I had finally pulled myself together and stepped onto my shoe.  That's when I noticed that the outside patio of the restaurant where we were going to have lunch had a full view of our performance.  It was filled with people.

I hope they noticed my shoes were pretty.

Body Image Problems

Her Royal Highness is having a problem with body image. Not her own body image, mind you! That's perfection. The body image of others.

Take for instance on Monday when I was leaving school and Andrew walked up to us wearing his headphones around his neck. They were the old school noise canceling headphones and they looked like giant black eyeballs growing out of his chest (see photo below).



HRH freaked out! She started barking, the hair rose on her spine. I did a correction and still she barked. I put her in a down stay and stopped Andrew. Fortunately for me, Andrew is a really nice kid and was perfectly willing to stand still while a clearly suspicious HRH stared at him from a down stay.

"I know it's not you, Andrew." I said, looking at him trying to figure it out. I let her out of the down stay so she could come closer. She jumped up and went for the headphones. Ah ha!

I put her back in a down stay and had Andrew take off the headphones. I gave the headphones to her. She gave them a bite. Then a lick. I gave them back undamaged but slobbery to Andrew. "Thanks, man! She thought you had weird giant eyeballs."

"Cool."

During a talk with our neighbor and fellow puppy raiser Stephanie, she said she had some old school headphones she could bring us so we could practice desensitizing HRH with them. So Fred wore the headphones and she reacted to them. We realized that we didn't have the training collar and leash on her and had to stop and get that on her to continue. Once that was done, we were able to control her better and hold her attention. Then we switched so I had the headphones on. No reaction at all! Success.

We tried it again this morning with Jan helping us and she ran over to Jan and acted like she was going to bark, but sat at her feet and wagged her tail instead.

Good girl.

And now, for your moment of Zen

Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley has had a problem recently with barking and not letting me get more than 5 feet away from her without barking for me to come back and attend her. This past week we did some training, with a little success. Fred and I would give her a down-stay command and then would leave her presence for 30 seconds to a minute and then come back to praise her for staying (if she did!) or get her to redo it (if she didn't).

As the line in Monty Python and the Holy Grail goes, "(She) got better."

I taught several classes last week and some of them went smoothly with HRH sitting quietly. Others, had HRH jumping up and harrassing me verbally to the amusement of all the students.

Wednesday, though, was a good day. I caught her in a rare moment of calm and tranquility and she decided that sitting more than five feet away from me was OK. Watch for the frequent glances back to me for verification that I am still in my same spot and haven't moved. Otherwise, not a peep from her.

Problem Child

Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley has a small problem that we are working on: she doesn't like for me or Fred to leave her side when we are out. For me, that is a HUGE problem because I teach research classes so I get up to point things out on the screen. This enormous length of perhaps 5 to 6 feet is apparently so annoying that it has HRH popping up and barking for me "Come back right now!"

You can imagine how that goes over. Usually, it involves a lot of me doing sit, down stays over and over while continuing to lecture with students trying not to laugh at HRH or me. It is quite comical. However at Honors Chemistry class, something different happened. I think it was all because of Simon.

I always have certain students who particularly care for the dogs I raise and Simon loves Berkeley. So he was really happy that we had research day on a Berkeley day and he watched HRH behaving badly with a calm demeanor (Simon is always calm).

"Perhaps Berkeley would be better without her coat on?" He said. I did recognize the longing to pet her behind the request and when I looked up and noticed the stillness of the rest of the class as they realized that I might actually go for it. I thought, I have tried all day everything else, why not try free range puppy?

"OK, Simon." Then I told them they had to be really focused, pay attention to what I was saying, not call her, only pet her when she walked by and she could be visible for the period.

Then I took the coat off. And class continued the same as always.

But every now and then a black dog walked by someone and they reached out and loved her and she slowed down for them. And she did find her way over to Simon, her biggest fan. Here are the Honors Chem boys and HRH.

More Wag, Less Bark

We are still plagued with a puppy who barks. I've figured out several reasons why Her Royal Highness Berkeley barks:

1. I'm sick of this place and I want to leave.


2. Pay attention to me. Now!


3. Don't stop petting me. (This to Austin, a freshman who came in to visit her. He had the unfortunate experience to be a wonderful dog petter and then he stopped. She was not amused.)


4. This is boring. (See #1, very similar)


5. I hate the library (although, this might be, the floor is cold and I hate the library).

All of the above are not acceptable. She can't be a barker. But we are at our wit's end about what to do about it. Take for example last Friday at the all school convo where we were celebrating our school's 50th anniversary. (Yeah, I'm going there, stay with me.)

Here is a shot of Her Royal Highness sitting comfortably behind my shoes on the gym floor with the bleachers at her back. We got through the prayer and the pledge just fine. We all sang the Alma Mater great. But then the speeches started and HRH began to get a wee bit restless. She did a bit of twisting and twirling and then she did her little part groan/part low bark. In poker, they call it a tell. When you do something that let's other people in on what's in your hand, what you are up to. It's a precursor to the I'm going to through a fit in a minute. I turned to the religion teacher on my left who was sitting at the end of the bleacher.

"Would you change seats with me? She's going to bark."

"Uh, sure!" She leaped up and we moved over. Then I looked back to the exit door. HORRORS! It was filled with children! All sitting down and covering the floor. Not a smidge of room to make an exit. Time for the librarian stare.

I turned to the first few kids nearest me, "I need a pathway to the exit door!" I managed to put a high degree of panic in my voice (how that happened I have no idea (think Headmaster!). Suddenly, as if I were Moses, there was a path through the upper students to the exit door. I sat and waited for the fit.

Two minutes later, it arrived. right as the alum from 1974 was extolling the virtues of going to school with crocodiles (seriously, I was no longer listening), HRH made a joyful, piercing noise. One bell ringing, high pitched, get me the heck out of here bark. The entire school heard it.

Without making eye contact with anyone, we high tailed it out the parted red sea of upper division students and I deposited her back in the library for a little nap and partial time out with Jan.

Fortunately for HRH, she does have an exceedingly beautiful face and a charmingly waggy tail which can go into wag overdrive at a truly amazing speed. So on those days when she barks, I am now trying to focus on the tail and not the head. Bark less, wag more. One of my students bought me a coffee mug that said that and also to think pawsitive. It is very cute and is in my office to remind should I become discouraged with her.

Here's a short video with a few scenes of HRH shaking her tail feathers. Watch for her putting it all in overdrive!

Lemon Discipline

It's hard to imagine that Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley would try to sass us, but for the last couple of nights, that's exactly what has been happening. We've stopped holding her muzzle when we say, "No Noise," because Fred noticed her little tail was wagging.

Negative attention. Not goood.

So we asked Marcy when we were at the meeting on Saturday. She said to try a little lemon juice on the inside of her cheek. That most dogs really disliked that and coupled with No Noise, that should bring her round.

The sassing usually begins at night and is usually directed at me. HRH will walk to the end of her lead as close to my chair as she can get and catch my eye. Then she snaps her jaws together.

"Don't do it." I point a finger at her.

"ARF!"

Aargh! Fred runs to get the lemon juice. We don't have any. He brings back lime juice. I smear some on my thumb and wait for the next sassing. "ARF!" Swish! I swoop in with my limey thumb and coat the inside of her cheek with limey tartness. She jumps back and stares at me. Then she licks her chops and lolls her tongue. I glance at Fred. "I think she likes it."

Fred runs back to the kitchen and returns with half a lemon. We wait. The sassing never ends on a mere two sasses. Sure enough, she winds up for number three. I jam my thumb down into the fresh and juicy lemon. As she finishes the bark, I am finishing the No Noise and starting to work my lemony thumb into her mouth. This time the results are inconclusive.

She walks over the the coffee table and grabs the lemon.




This video shows her before things got out of control. She's merely licking the lemon. Lemony goodness! Then things went off the hook!



As the video shows, the lemon sets off puppy crazies. Maybe we'll try a time out.